This chapter discusses Aaron Kramer, a Marxist poet. Kramer achieved his first national recognition when his poems appeared along with Bodenheim's and Kreymborg's in the antifascist collection Seven ...
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This chapter discusses Aaron Kramer, a Marxist poet. Kramer achieved his first national recognition when his poems appeared along with Bodenheim's and Kreymborg's in the antifascist collection Seven Poets in Search of an Answer. After World War II, Kramer wrote people's poetry such as Roll the Forbidden Drums! (1954).Less

Off Modernity's Grid

Alan M. Wald

Published in print: 2012-10-15

This chapter discusses Aaron Kramer, a Marxist poet. Kramer achieved his first national recognition when his poems appeared along with Bodenheim's and Kreymborg's in the antifascist collection Seven Poets in Search of an Answer. After World War II, Kramer wrote people's poetry such as Roll the Forbidden Drums! (1954).

This chapter observes that the post-World War II moment brought a mix of disillusion, uncertainty, anger, and cynicism resonating in the new mass-market venues for radical writers. It presents a ...
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This chapter observes that the post-World War II moment brought a mix of disillusion, uncertainty, anger, and cynicism resonating in the new mass-market venues for radical writers. It presents a brief profile of Aaron Kramer (1921–97), a Jewish American Communist for two decades and a prolific poet who secured his reputation after the 1930s—which dramatizes some of the salient features of the Jewish American experience with Communism, especially that of first- and second-generation Eastern European Jews. The chapter notes that the inordinately large number of Jews in the intellectual apparatus of the Party as well as the panoply of cultural networks that appeared as part of the broader social movement was a pronounced feature that grew even more obvious during the antifascist crusade when Aaron Kramer found his poetic voice.Less

The Conversion of the Jews

Alan M. Wald

Published in print: 2007-02-26

This chapter observes that the post-World War II moment brought a mix of disillusion, uncertainty, anger, and cynicism resonating in the new mass-market venues for radical writers. It presents a brief profile of Aaron Kramer (1921–97), a Jewish American Communist for two decades and a prolific poet who secured his reputation after the 1930s—which dramatizes some of the salient features of the Jewish American experience with Communism, especially that of first- and second-generation Eastern European Jews. The chapter notes that the inordinately large number of Jews in the intellectual apparatus of the Party as well as the panoply of cultural networks that appeared as part of the broader social movement was a pronounced feature that grew even more obvious during the antifascist crusade when Aaron Kramer found his poetic voice.